The Irresistible Life Force and the Indifference of Nature
abracad, · Categories: spiritualityThere is a conflict between the irrepressible urge of living things to survive and thrive and the tendency of the material universe to revert progress back to the nothingness from which it emerged.
Seen through human eyes the universe appears not only indifferent, but positively cruel. Though nature undoubtedly has great healing powers, evident to anyone able to immerse themselves in its majestic beauty, it is also capable of horrors beyond the excesses of the most brutal movies.
As kids we're told stories in which everyone lives happily ever after. Sadly life isn't like that. Nature is red in tooth and claw. Species' routinely slaughter their neighbors without regard for the suffering inflicted.
Humans, the supposedly civilized species of manners, law and decency, hide behind a veneer of propriety. Do we do so out of a sense of righteousness, or a fear of the consequences of doing otherwise? Whatever the reason, enough of us - regardless of specific culture or society - "revert to nature" to make law enforcement a significant sector of our economy. And the mass slaughter of war makes the most unpleasant behaviors of our "inferior" creatures pale into insignificance.
And yet for all this, the life force is irrepressible. Fill a garden pond with clean fresh water, leave it for a few weeks/days and it will be teeming with life. Dig and weed a patch of soil in the garden, leave it, and it too will soon be host to all manner of plant life. From simple, single-cells, capable of reproducing themselves, the life force has somehow created the multitude and diversity of life forms of which we are privileged to be a part.
It is quite remarkable that this evolution, the result of the life force overcoming overwhelming odds against, has happened at all.
In Spiritual terms the entire physical universe is a manifestation of some deeper level of existence, which itself may (recursively) be a manifestation of ever-deeper levels all the way back to the ultimate source. The physical universe is an indifferent entity, because it needed to be so in order for life to emerge, progress and flourish. Without the harshness of the environment, various "designs" could not have competed with one another to be most worthy. There could be no winners without losers.
Nevertheless the apparent cruelty can be shocking and in considerable contrast to the religious teachings about there being an all-good God.
What can't be avoided must be accepted, however difficult that may be. But when viewed against the bigger picture nothing is (anywhere near) as bad as it first appears. Even on the timescale of the universe. All earthly events, however momentous, great or terrible aren't even drops in the cosmic ocean.
Yet nothing is for nothing. Every event emanating from the miracle of life, however great or small, plays a role in shaping the Spiritual evolution and contributing to the progress of the single source from which all else originates.
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